


No Solace

by pettiot



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: M/M, flirtations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-25
Updated: 2010-07-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:42:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22303579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: Ten random songs. Ten word prompts, from livejournal's the_sandsea community. Balthier/Basch, all too many failed flirtations.
Relationships: Balthier/Basch
Kudos: 2





	1. You Have Cured a Million Ghosts from Roaming in my Head

Aarktica, 3:33.  
#2. Apart

Battles are fought in silence. This Balthier knows, because noise, as his father dictated, is defined by having _meaning_ , or some such thing; in any case Balthier knows every wretched gasp and moan of a battle is worthless, wasted energy, an inefficiency of motion. Balthier fights with his lips pressed tight against the shout until he cannot hold any longer. Balthier's lips are apart, the words out, without meaning, for his hands are caught half-way between motion and purpose and he cannot afford to spill his shot across the scape, he shouts: ' _Basch_ – your back – '

Balthier clamps his lips shut again, regrets the loss of his own determination, for Basch turns, catches the coeurl on his axblade, the motion completed long before Balthier's wasted words could have reached him. The process between eyes and brain, brain and mouth, mouth to sound, sound to ears, ears to action; inefficient delivery, in a battle, where a bullet would have served Basch better.

'Thank you,' Basch says, afterwards, 'well called.' His gratitude is delivered with as much ease as his smile, even as Basch still gasps a breathy recovery. Balthier holds his lips tight in a line, flushes at what must be the implicit mockery. Their battles are best fought in silence.


	2. Hotel Radio

David Bridle, 3.33.  
#3. Magick

Balthier feels the drain before long; he knows first aid, Fran does not, and Vaan turns faint even if Balthier snaps a command for him to hold the edges of a wound together, as Balthier forms each stitch. Basch, meanwhile, deals with each touch as he does with each injury, stoic, looking away, ignoring that wound, pain, proximity must occur. Balthier has never been comfortable with skin, less so with blood, but he does not shirk necessity. Basch's skin is white from lack of sun, black with filth, freckled beneath every stripe of blood that Balthier wipes off. The freckles startle Balthier, a remnant proof that once this man lived under a sky. Their supplies are low, their time shorter, so Basch's skin rediscovers the touch of air only once savaged and bloody.

In Rabanastre, the first thing Balthier does is buy a cure spell, license and lore both. In the Sandsea, he scrubs, scrubs, in vain, for Basch's blood is well grained into his skin, under his nails.


	3. Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong

Radiohead, 4.40.  
#14. Bright

Balthier turns childish with drink, sly where wit usually reigns more benignly; whining and sulking, snapping and laughing; childish, and the fear buried so shallow beneath that sensualist mask surfaces. The brightness of Balthier's eyes is dull with drink; that, Basch thinks, is the greatest tragedy here.

'Balthier.' Strange it is to be rescuing the man here, when it is Balthier who plays the hero. Basch holds Balthier's wrist, and thus his next drink, down. 'Bed.'

'Oh yes,' Balthier purrs, not bold enough to do more than look, and talk. As Basch walks the pirate up to his bunk, he notes even out of public sight the pirate still is not bold enough to do more than talk, and talk; it is Basch who does the touching, holding the pirate's weight up the stairs.

'Do you even want sex?' Basch has to ask, for it seems instead the pirate _plays_ at wanting.

Balthier flinches, stretched on his bed like a whore one moment and suddenly curled like a snail, in retreat. 'Not if you'll fuck me as bluntly as you speak.'

Basch laughs, kneels, runs a hand through Balthier's stiff hair.

The pirate's eyes close, open, shine bright in the lamplight. 'Thank you.'

'For what?'

'For asking. At this point, it is not…the usual question I hear.'

Basch does not want to ask; he can imagine. Nalbina honed that self-wielded weapon well. 'Why do you let yourself get to this point, then?'

'Basch.' Balthier arches up into Basch's touch, eyes closed. 'I am not wanton enough for what this life wants of me.'

'None of us are,' Basch replies. Balthier's breath lengthens, relaxed. Trusted, enough to sleep; Basch finds that discovery is a welcome, unexpected one.


	4. Unchained Melody

Righteous Brothers, 3.37.  
#15. Dawn

In Nalbina Basch counted the mornings he woke without hope. So much was lost in the war, his own sense of desire a meaningless casualty, but that he would have welcomed its morning company as assurance of his continuation, a man, still.

The resurgence of _want_ hits Basch midway through the estersand, after enough steady meals fill his belly, Balthier's obsessive regulation of their day's schedule of progress so welcome after the broken, sleepless insanity of torture.

Basch is a man, but he lives in debt; he holds his own cock as though it belongs to a stranger.

.

Balthier wonders if Basch used to mark the mornings with that literary device, that tally of lines cut across the stone of his usual cell; whether Basch counted the days in the cage as lost to the winds; and Balthier wonders only because his own compulsion would have him do the same. As it is, even as free as he is, Balthier marks every morning in a journal, a few quick words, something to pin the day past to the page, to grant him ownership.

The day Basch comes to him, unashamed, with his –query, Balthier has no words.

Balthier sets aside his glasses and pen, regards Basch without obstruction. The flush on the man's face is heat, not shame. For a moment, Balthier envies the idea that a man can own his desire so wholly it becomes something quite separate to his self.

'You want me to what for you? Is a heroic rescue not enough?'

Basch shrugs. 'I seem to have forgotten how to do it myself. You look like you know a few tricks.'

Balthier closes his journal on a blank page, tucks it back into its pouch, and crosses his arms. 'I think not.'

'Pity,' Basch says, considering. 'Once, I could have taught you a few.'


	5. Sunset,

Nitin Sawhney, 4.45.  
#16. Sacrifice

The worst of it is leaving behind the Strahl, Balthier decides. Fran is in his arms; she, at least, is not even an option to leave behind, no sacrifice on the altar of his father's pride. As for Balthier's own pride, his reputation can only grow with this episode behind it, and Ashelia's aching cry, _Balthier, Balthier, we need you_ (he grins, ah, he'll be grinning over that for years). With a fleet full of Archadian soldiers hearing that royal desperation over the airwaves Balthier's sure his reputation won't suffer from a bit of impossible gallantry on top of his seemingly impossible mechanical heroism. Balthier knows Bahamut like his own brother, fortunately; everything Cid conceives of bears this mark of paternity.

The Strahl is a fair sacrifice in exchange for such gains, so little risk, Balthier decides.

Later, much later, Balthier discovers what Basch decided was an acceptable sacrifice. Balthier is disgruntled. Giving up his whole life seems so very _Basch_ , always, always trumping Balthier so damned effortlessly.

Balthier takes back the Strahl and heads directly for Archades, peeved. Sacrifice is so very damned meaningless when someone else does it better.


	6. Beyond Skin

Nitin Sawhney, 3.49.  
#23. Shield

'Try keeping your distance instead,' Balthier remarks. 'It preserves the sanctity of my skin well enough.'

Basch mourns the split shell of his shield; it was a light one, easy to maneuver, and it took even Nightmare's strikes without a scar, only to shatter in this meaningless skirmish. 'Distance works with a gun, not with a sword. I prefer to stand behind a barrier.'

'Fight with a gun, then. I have one extra, if you will.'

Basch shakes his head. 'And who will keep the bulk of the beasts from shredding your back, then, if I am posed matching imposingly atop some other convenient distant rock?'

Fran steps between them, swiftly, takes Basch's longsword from the grass. She spins it, the blade whirring, blurring, invisible; amidst that crazed complexity of skilled motion, Fran halts as though spelled. The tip of the blade vibrates, right level with Basch's eye. One hair – one hair! – falls cut from his fringe.

Basch cannot know his own expression, but Fran smiles. 'I will protect the pair of you.'

'Fran,' Balthier says, idly, 'prefers to kill things before they can get in a return blow. Rather useful when lacking shields, or the surety of distance.'

'Yes,' Basch manages, 'I can imagine.'


	7. Sing It Again

Beck, 4.21.  
#25. Let me count the ways

'In Balfonheim –'

'You can't count that,' Balthier protests, 'it's my home ground, I had a reputation to uphold.'

Basch pushes the drink back across the table. 'Rabanastre.'

'That was Vaan's fault,' Balthier grins, 'I said you'd had enough, but he passed you his dregs, and, well. You drank them.'

'Out in the Salikawood. There's no good excuse for that.'

'Entirely Fran's idea there,' Balthier muses, 'marlboros send her a little silly, you've probably noticed.'

Basch shakes his head, firmly. 'Every time I drink with you, I end up naked somewhere. No, Balthier. I'm going to bed. To _sleep_.'

'Come on,' Balthier grins, stretches, 'I've always left you your underwear.'

'Rest assured,' Basch leans across the table, catches Balthier's eye, 'the next time you fall drunker than I, I'll not pay you the same courtesy.'

Balthier's open-mouthed silence extends for long enough that Basch nearly escapes, before Balthier stands and shouts across the length of the crowded bar: 'Basch! What makes you think I'm wearing any?'


	8. Hot One

Shudder to Think, 3.05.  
#26. Rain

Rain turns Balthier into a dismayed cat, his hair plastered to his forehead, his brocade vest already packed away preemptively, his shirt turned transparent with wet. Shouldn't wear white, Basch could have told him, were he not enjoying the pirate's current disarray. At least it is warm; the rain offers Basch some relief.

'The embroidery will swell,' Balthier says, rather pathetically, winding down at last. All his oilskin goes on his guns, Fran's bowstring and spares. 'The leather’s going to crack. Don't smirk at me, Basch. Are you aware of the quality of the work that’s in these pants?'

'I’ve seen what you pack, Balthier –'

'--oh?'

'--more than enough oil to rub your hems supple again in the morning.'

Balthier's return grunt is the definition of disgruntled.

'Or,' Basch adds, 'you could just do what we would do in Landis, and wear nothing when it rains.'

Balthier considers that for some time, disbelieving; Balthier's worldly cynicism here, Basch admits, grinning, is a valid enough response.

'I bet a lot of birthdays fell nine months after the rains.'

'Ah,' Basch says, 'but would you bet your shirt and pants on it?'


	9. Now Mary

White Stripes, 1.48.  
#30. Regal

Basch has to say it _again_ after Jahara, just the once, just to be sure, whispers it in passing as though the volume reduces the severity. He asks after a fight, after he witnesses Balthier offer Ashelia seemingly more than a bow and his hand to help her rise. Too much of Basch is engineered to respond to the pirate with trust, trust in exchange for Balthier's assurance, but Ashelia should not fall prey to such a common ploy, this one of young men and younger women.

'I have no _hard_ feelings towards the princess one way or another.' Balthier smirks, shrugs, and across shirted shoulders laced with the kiss of battle; sweat and sand, the motion is _torment_. 'You, on the other hand, I could hold a grudge against all night.'

Basch opens his mouth, finds no words come, frowns in response, puzzled. Balthier heaves a sigh and walks away, and only _then_ does Basch translate the pirate's allusion for what it is, flirtation, and entirely distinct to that manner of behavior which Balthier directs towards their resident royalty.

Basch recognizes what Balthier's words, at last, admit, in howsoever roundabout a way the pirate must come.

If by the time they are done, and neither of them are dead, Basch wonders if he should start running. Balthier in pursuit is a concept Basch finds – unusually appealing.


	10. Nature Boy

David Bowie/Massive Attack, 3.26.  
#46. Sleep

Basch cannot sleep, nor thinks to blame the full moon for his restlessness.

With Vossler’s heavy breath at his back, Basch nevertheless hears every sound as though his ears were as sharp as the viera’s. Ashe whispers a dream-word to Penelo where they lie under the majority of blankets; the girl’s reply is muffled with exhaustion. From where Vaan keeps watch atop the only rocky ground, Basch hears him swear and scuff at something that cracks on impact. A scorpion, Basch decides, and as they all lie wrapped only in the scarce protection of blankets for the sake of travel speed, Basch is vaguely satisfied at the boy’s diligence.

If he strains his ears past breath and heartbeat, past word and Vossler’s rasp, he imagines he hears Fran’s steady outward sigh undisturbed by moon, night’s chill, or her solitude.

\--for the blankets beside Fran are empty, and have been for as long as Basch lay sleepless.

Basch _cannot_ sleep. These games feel like those of a life past, a life not his own for he had never been a deft player, unable to determine his own success or failure, yet it is not in his nature to surrender without an attempt.

He rolls smoothly; he feels the chill on bare chest, nipples, scars alike, his skin tight. He rises to his knees, stealthy –

'You take your time with these things as though you had an age to spare,' Vossler grunts, and tugs the blankets close against the nape of his neck. 'The pirate's not young enough to appreciate your pace, nor old enough to respect it.'

Basch’s grin feels like an apology, yet he is uncertain to whom he directs it.


End file.
